


Those Gates of Hell

by anr



Category: Space: Above and Beyond
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-18
Updated: 2007-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five nights on Demios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Gates of Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolf_cat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wolf_cat).



> _Sugar Dirt_ (1x22)
> 
> Request: Cooper and Shane, but any fic for any character would be amazing.

  


* * *

**NIGHT THREE**  


* * *

  


They meet up with the forty-sixth, the one-twenty-second, the eighty-first, and a few dozen marines, all of whom have been separated from their actual squads. She tries to keep track of their faces, if not their names or ranks, but the terrain is crawling with chigs and it's hard enough staying close to her own people, let alone to a hundred or so marines she's probably never met before, or ever will again.

"Lieutenant Soames, seventy-fourth!" a marine shouts, appearing beside her as chigs swarm the creek bed. Coop is on her other side, coating everything in front of them with an unending spray of bullets; she can hardly hear anything else. "Your orders, Captain?"

She turns to look at him, to order him over to where the forty-sixes are trying to bottleneck the chigs at the creek fork, and watches him fall, half his face suddenly just _gone_ , dead before she can even open her mouth.

Swallowing down bile, she turns back to order her team further in.

  


* * *

  


They survive the night but only barely. The other squads are not so lucky and their casualty rates are almost total. She tries to group the survivors together, to keep them with her, but someone mouths off that they'll be less of a target if they separate, if they keep to smaller groups, and nothing she or the five-eights can say can convince them otherwise.

Watching them go, she knows most of them will be dead by night fall.

  


* * *

**NIGHT ELEVEN**  


* * *

  


Coop's patience cracks completely and even though she's been watching his frustration build -- all of them have abandonment issues of some kind, she knows, and he's never been very good at dealing with that sort of stuff -- his negativity still manages to catch her off guard.

"How long, huh?" he demands in a harsh whisper, sharpening his knife with angry swipes. "How long are we gonna have to wait for them to finish fucking around up there and --"

"Paul, get the radio. It's nineteen-hundred." The words are out of her mouth before she even realises she's spoken.

Coop glares at her. "So?" He's still spoiling for a fight, even after the battle they barely walked away from not two hours earlier.

"So, the satellite's up," she says, like it's obvious, like it hasn't just occurred to her to try again tonight. "Time to check in."

A spark of hope flares in Coop's eyes and he falls silent.

  


* * *

  
The _Saratoga_ fails to acknowledge her report. She's not surprised -- even if they _can_ hear her, they may not be in a position to respond -- but the look of betrayal in Coop's eyes stings in ways she wasn't expecting.

She makes the nineteen-hundred check in a nightly routine anyway.

  


* * *

**NIGHT TWENTY-FOUR**  


* * *

  


They're being tracked.

She's suspected it for most of the day, has _known_ it since sunset.

Coop walks over to where she's still standing at the entrance of the clearing they've picked for the night, her stance deceptively casual as she keeps her back to the supposed threat. Her rifle is in her hands, finger hovering above the trigger, even though they've been without ammo for three days now. Stopping beside her, he looks out through the trees, his right shoulder brushing her left. "How many?" he asks, voice too low for the others to hear.

"Just the one," she says, ignoring the urge to look over her shoulder. "I think it's a scout."

Coop nods and hands her his eighth of a ration bar. He's only taken one bite of it. "I'm gonna go for a walk," he says, hitching at his pants like he needs to go pee.

 _No_ , she thinks, _no_. She knows what he's really going to go do -- worse yet, knows that he _can_ do it -- and that scares her in ways she's not so sure she wants to define.

She takes a small bite of his ration bar and forces herself to shrug, to play along. "Don't be gone long," she says.

  


* * *

  
He returns an hour later, slightly out of breath and slick with what looks like sweat. Paul looks at him like he's crazy, like he can't fathom why anyone would exercise when they're all exhausted from running, and fighting, day in and day out.

"It's called conservation, man," he says, tossing Coop a water bag. "Save your energy for killing chigs."

Grunting, Coop ignores him and drinks.

  


* * *

**NIGHT THIRTY-EIGHT**  


* * *

  


It rains for five days and five nights, soaking everything in sight. The ground is slick with mud, their visibility almost non-existent. Everybody's wet and tired, mistaking tree branches and boulders for the enemy. Nobody speaks unless they have to.

  


* * *

  
They find the cave by accident, Nathan stumbling into it in the dark as they struggle across the rocky terrain. It's not large by any standard -- barely enough room for one person to stand or sit -- but it's empty and _dry_ and everybody wants in.

Nathan gets them all to draw sticks, creating a roster for the night. Everyone will get exactly eighty minutes alone in the cave, the others standing guard. She can't remember the last time she had any privacy and can hardly wait for her turn.

Paul first, then Nathan, Phousse, Coop, and finally herself. They're all careful not to pay any attention to what each person does inside the cave -- they might be a team, might be the inseparable five-eights, but this sudden chance for solitude is different, _necessary_ \-- and she forces herself not to speculate while she waits.

Coop exits the cave after exactly eighty minutes, moving over to touch her shoulder. "Your turn," he says.

Inside the cave, she settles into the most comfortable position she can find and starts running through a list of possible things she can do during this free time.

She's asleep before she can get item two.

  


* * *

**NIGHT FIFTY-SIX**  


* * *

  


They bury the three-sevens in shallow graves on the side of a hill, first relieving them of half a dozen charges, three cartridges and half a ration pack. They're the first real supplies they've found in almost two weeks and they use the explosives to set a trap for the chigs, killing fourteen in a bright flash of fire. They're running on two mouthfuls of food and an average of maybe an hour's sleep a night this week; she finds herself yawning as they pick paths through the bodies.

"Hoorah," says Phousse tiredly, leaning over to slit a wounded chig's throat from gills to gills.

No one echoes her.

  


* * *

  
They sleep in shifts, one hour on watch, four hours off. It's probably not enough to keep them sane, but it's better than nothing at all. Nathan organised the watch order initially (Phousse, Paul, Coop, then him, then her) and tonight she's on mid shift.

She walks the perimeter of their small camp and listens for anything out of the ordinary, anything threatening.

In the silence, Paul snuffles quietly in his sleep, further hunching in on himself. Nathan and Phousse are sleeping back to back, their heads tipped back to rest on the other's shoulder. Coop sleeps slumped against a boulder, a useless rifle across his lap and his knife clenched tightly in his fist.

If it's the last thing she does, she'll keep them safe.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/302619.html>


End file.
